Fonda and this film both look good, she as a haggard, fas been alcoholic, and sunny Los Angeles nicely photographed. Bridges also gives a solid performance in this story that starts off on good fitting but gradually grows thinner as it progresses. The final disappointment is the films weak ending. If you love Fonda and/or Bridges you might still enjoy this film, but for others I wouldn't go out of my way and seek it out.

Alex Sternbergen (Jane Fonda) is a drunken lush and a failed actress pass her prime. After a night of blackout drinking, she wakes up next to notorious photographer Bobby Korshack stabbed to death. She calls her non-romantic husband hairdresser Joaquin Manero (Raul Julia) who tells her to contact the cops. Instead, she tries to clean up and make a run for it. She gets into trouble at the airport and picks up a ride with the slightly racist Turner Kendall (Jeff Bridges).Director Sidney Lumet is channeling a bit of his inner Hitchcock. He's using some bright colors and light jazzy music. It needs some darker music with more intensity. It's a tougher hang as Alex makes for an unsympathetic protagonist. It does have a few great lines like the cop who demeans Joaquin as a fag. He comes back with "How bad do you wanna know?" There are moments of intrigue but I could never truly care for Alex. It's not Jane Fonda's fault. It's really the character.

TMA is definitely for fans who love Jane Fonda, and want to see her strut her stuff, where she's in top form, truly believable as an alcoholic ex actress, displaying a real range of emotions, all done so believably. She's wound up sleeping next to a very much dead guy, a knife sticking out of his belly. For very much of the movie, she's trying to piece together, what happened the night before, as her inebriation has of course, annihilated her memory of the goings on, where we learned she attended a Hollywood party, the night before. This dead body keeps popping up, where someone's obviously trying to frame her. She meets a cop, Turner Kendall (great name played well by Jeff Bridges) that has us very much suspecting him. He's always around where she is, and his car keeps conking out. TMA isn't a good thriller. There's a real weakness throughout the film, as really there's not much plotting, where you don't have to be a genius to see how this film unfolds. Jeff Bridge's other short running pic, the earlier 8 Million Ways To Die had much more going for it. Raul Julia is almost wasted really as Fonda's good friend, with a little bit of menace to his character, a homosexual. He tries to help Fonda a bit, trying to stray the Bridges character away from her. Really, connect the dots. The opening music score, after the bloody start, is kind of a drone but does work with that moment, with Fonda, strolling out into the L.A sun, after taking off from that bloody sight. Bridge's ex cop character is fun to watch, very much cause he's real, He has flaws, and too, is not normally like the tough guy he usually plays. Just compare him here to his character in 8 Million Ways To Die, which hit the screen three months earlier than this. The bloody climax is less than impressive if only for the exaggerated and unreal gore. TMA, despite a good concept, is really is a weak written film that could of been a whole lot better if the writers, weren't hanging about in Lazyville, which like other films, is typically the main fault here, yet it's a real colorfully entertaining film, which we owe greatly to it's topline actors. Too, it's worth the viewing to see a great actress, doing a great acting piece.

Overripe concoction in a shiny, sterile package. Jane Fonda plays a glamorously burnt-out alcoholic in Los Angeles who wakes up one morning after a bender and discovers a bloody corpse next to her in bed. Jeff Bridges (talking slowly with narrowed eyes) is an ex-cop who helps Fonda piece together the previous night's events. Soaper-cum-mystery-thriller, directed by an uninspired Sidney Lumet, defies logic and credibility at nearly every turn. Fonda works hard to elevate the proceedings, and received a surprising Oscar nod for her efforts, but she can't overcome the clumsiness of the plot's conception (nor the lousy screenplay). A huge disappointment for noir buffs. *1/2 from ****